Wodonga Middle Years College raises money for Dolly's Dream

Dolly's Dream was created by Tick and Kate Everett following the loss of their 14-year-old daughter, Dolly, to suicide, after ongoing bullying.

Both Huon and Felltimber campuses of the college have made June 21 to 25 into a "Do it for Dolly Week".

Students have bought blue milkshakes and cupcakes, spray-painted their hair blue and worn the colour on a casual clothes day, all to raise money.

Textile students created scrunchies and badges to sell.

Felltimber school captain and year 9 student Tash Wilson, 15, said it had been a big effort with 12 students leading the charge.

"We've been planning all this term," she said.

"It's to raise money for suicide awareness and make sure people are talking up.

"It's a very important message."

Fellow school captain Kaleb Nehemiah, 15, said he had learned about Dolly's Dream.

"I didn't know about it, but I know with bullying on social media, we want to stop that happening," he said.

On Thursday, Tash and her peers had a stall set up selling food and tickets for a raffle with prizes donated from local businesses.

"We've got cupcakes, badges, lollies and raffle tickets," she said.

"We already raised $200 on Wednesday with the raffle tickets.

"We hope to get a bit of money."

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Teacher Kylie Fortington said the students had taken part in classes about the main messages from the foundation.

"We've been doing a lot of work this week around the effects of online bullying," she said.

"The whole school has done activities, around using kind language.

"The student leaders have put together raffle hampers and gone around to classes to promote it."

It was the college's first event.

"We saw it in May and wanted to do something, but with COVID, it just couldn't happen," Ms Fortington said.

"We thought, 'Better late than never'.

"It just gives us more motivation to do it next year as well."